


love, the way it hurts

by bluelines



Category: Hockey RPF, Women's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Parents, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Single Parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 04:20:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11661498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluelines/pseuds/bluelines
Summary: It's been almost a year since Kacey's wife died, and Meghan has become a bigger part of her life than either of them are ready to admit.





	love, the way it hurts

**i.**

“What kind of jelly do you want?” Meghan asks, her upper body disappearing into the refrigerator.

Kacey watches her from across the kitchen. Sophie swings her feet at the counter. With her hair swept out of her face she looks so much like her mom that it makes Kacey’s coffee taste like ash even with two sugars and enough cream to turn it light.

“Mom always makes it with purple,” Sophie says.

“Grape,” Kacey mumbles, and Meghan glances back over her shoulder.

“Well, I’m sorry,” Meghan says, “that your mom has been doing that to you, because peanut butter and jelly is supposed to be made with strawberry jelly.”

Meghan deftly makes the sandwich. Kacey could have and they both know it, but Meghan doesn’t seem to mind, and neither does Sophie. She doesn’t mind it when Meghan packs her lunch or follows them out of the house and into her car. It’s Kacey who minds, Kacey who feels like she’s crawling out of her skin even after she kisses Sophie goodbye and slinks back into the passenger seat of Meghan’s car.

“Alright,” Meghan says, putting her car back in drive, “yoga, let’s go.”

-

Meghan has been doing this for months. Eleven months, Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Sophie will be six in two weeks, and in two more it will have been a year since Kacey’s life was put on pause. Sometimes she feels like nothing has changed at all since the day she woke up and Jen was gone, just like that, leaving her a twenty minute ride to the hospital to try to explain death to a five-year-old while her insides hollowed themselves out to make room for her grief. 

The thing is, she’s been watching this same series of trees and stores and homes go by outside Meghan’s window on the way to the studio for eleven months. She’s seen the leaves turn and fall, seen Sophie grow inches taller and shades blonder. The only thing that’s stayed the same since Jen died is her.

“Hey,” Meghan says, turning down her music, “stop thinking.”

“Just trying to figure out what to do for dinner,” Kacey lies. Meghan doesn’t try to get the truth out of her. She goes along with it the way she’s gone along with everything else.

“I have a great casserole recipe,” she says, and Kacey musters up enough energy to give Meghan a look.

“We’re not that old,” she says, and Meghan smiles.

Taking yoga at Meghan’s studio had been Meghan’s idea, but Kacey wouldn’t want to go a week without it anymore. Forty minutes of not being expected to talk or put on a face for anyone is her favorite part of the day, not to mention the familiar, tingling numbness that comes with well-worked muscles. The studio, being Meghan’s, is bright and friendly and easy to forget herself in.

She doesn’t have to be on campus for an hour still once class ends, which is just long enough for a quick shower and change, but when she gets back into Meghan’s car her plans are immediately in flux. Meghan has to teach another class in thirty minutes but it never stops her from dropping Kacey back off. It’s started to feel like charity, somehow, now that Kacey doesn’t necessarily need the encouragement to get out of bed, but she’s too embarrassed to bring it up.

“You should call out one day,” Meghan says. “Just one day. Your assistants can handle one practice. Pick a conditioning day. We’ll go see a movie or something while Sophie’s in school.”

“I can’t do that, Kacey says automatically, “not everyone can make their own hours.”

Meghan frowns. Kacey feels bad for the way she’s said it, but she’s _jealous_ every time she thinks about Meghan’s perfect life, perfect little house and homegrown business. She feels bad for that, too.

“If you told the athletics director you needed an afternoon off,” she says, “I doubt he would mind. It’s normal. It’s healthy.”

Meghan doesn’t know that the athletics director is also the football coach, who has never felt a moment of empathy in his life, but Kacey is too tired to explain how she knows it’s a bust without trying. 

“Maybe,” she says instead, and Meghan looks so briefly excited that it makes Kacey a little sick to her stomach.

-

Sophie is always one of the last kids to get picked up except on the days that Kacey doesn’t have practice. Some days it doesn’t bother her, but today, when she walks into the gym where they hold late care to see Sophie sitting by herself surrounded by puzzle pieces, her breath seizes in her chest.

Meghan would do it if Kacey asked. Meghan would never let Sophie be left alone like that if she could change it. Kacey can’t understand why that thought keeps sticking in her head even after she’s scooped Sophie up into a hug, but it’s still there, even with Sophie’s little hands fisted into her t-shirt.

“Will you help me with my homework, mommy?” she asks, and Kacey almost chokes up when she does. Sophie doesn’t resent her at all. She doesn’t even know that she should. She looks so much like Jen now that her hair has gone almost platinum blonde. 

“Let’s go home,” she says, and lifts Sophie up onto her shoulders like she’s three again.

-

It turns out the homework is a family tree.

Kacey helps, drawing straight lines with a ruler and cutting out the pictures that Sophie draws, to be pasted onto the cardboard. They’ve has filled every spot, but Sophie keeps drawing, someone new that Kacey can’t recognize in stick figure form. She watches for a few seconds, cradling her chin in her hand while Sophie works industriously to give her stick person a full head of brown hair. 

“Who’s that?” Kacey asks.

“Aunt Meghan,” Sophie says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“There’s no room for her on the tree,” Kacey points out, “she’s not your real--I mean, she’s not technically your aunt.”

Sophie looks up blankly, her nearly-flat crayon poised above the sheet of printer paper. 

“But I call her Aunt Meghan,” she points out.

“Yeah,” Kacey says, “but she’s not related to us, you know? We don’t have the same parents or anything, she’s just my friend.”

She watches Sophie consider that for a little while and wonders what’s going through her head. Her eyes are startlingly blue. They always were, but when she was little, Jen used to say they would probably get darker. They never did. 

“Can we still put her on my tree?” 

Kacey doesn’t have the heart to argue. They find a space for Meghan, but Kacey can’t figure out whether she should draw a line to connect her anywhere. 

Sophie is the one that draws the line straight from stick-figure Meghan to her little square.

-

“I want to throw Sophie a birthday party,” Kacey says. Meghan looks up from her pizza--cauliflower crust, so it’s a good thing Kacey loves her--and lights up.

“That would be adorable,” Meghan gushes, “All those little kids.”

“I don’t really have room here,” Kacey points out, “but I could probably find somewhere to do it if I wanted to, I just--I don’t think she has many friends.”

“She’s just shy,” Meghan says, nudging Kacey’s knee with her foot, “she takes after her mama.”

The couch is too big for just the two of them unless Meghan sprawls like this, but she always does, like she’s conscious of the space that Jen left behind. They used to do this, the three of them, sometimes others too, like Meghan’s girlfriends back when she still bothered to have them. 

“I’m afraid to ask her who she wants to invite and find out there’s nobody to invite at all,” Kacey murmurs. She considers opening a bottle of wine, but at this point she knows exactly how bad her headache would be tomorrow morning.

Meghan makes a thoughtful sound. She’s wearing an old Team USA sweatshirt with her number on it, and Kacey almost wants to go get hers. Even after years of retirement it feels bizarre not to be in some kind of uniform if someone else is. The sweatshirt is from their last year with the national team, and thinking about it baffles Kacey. Meghan was blonde then. Sophie wasn’t even an idea yet.

“Well,” Meghan says, “ask her what she wants to do instead of asking her who she wants to invite. If she’s got friends she wants over she’ll probably bring them up then. If not...you could always do something with your parents. Or Jen’s.”

They’d like that. Kacey hasn’t seen them much. Everything she read, when she bothered to read, told her that it could help the grieving process to immerse herself in Jen’s family, but it felt wrong, and Jen’s mother looked so much like her that it was painful anyway. 

“I could invite both,” Kacey agrees, “there’s enough room for that.”

It’s quiet for a few seconds, and she can feel that she’s going to say something. Usually she can stop herself, but every once in a while the ice breaks and something slips out, and she knows it’s coming, like a hiccup, like a reflex.

“We were going to have moved by now,” she says, clutching her La Croix so hard she dents the can with her thumb. Meghan looks at her but doesn’t say anything, like she’s afraid to break whatever spell Kacey’s under that she’s _addressing_ it for the first time in at least two months.

“We knew this place wasn’t big enough for more than one kid,” Kacey says, “and we were always planning on two. Jen was afraid Soph would get lonely, ‘cause she was when she was little, I guess.”

Meghan puts her plate down and slides along the couch to sit beside Kacey, who grapples with the fact that she still feels like crying now. It’s not as if she hadn’t let herself do it when it was appropriate, but now it just makes her look like the sad widow, the one that never gets on with her life, because that’s who she is. Everything has changed around her and she knows it.

“Sophie goes to a great school,” Meghan says, rubbing Kacey’s back, “she’s a really smart, beautiful, happy little girl. I don’t think she’s lonely.”

“I’d adopt if I could afford it,” Kacey says suddenly, anything to keep herself from crying, because she’s still on the verge of tears. 

“Would you?” Meghan asks, and Kacey picks out the surprise in her voice.

“No,” she laughs, a little bit jarred by her own mood swing, but preferring to be overtired and giddy, “God, no, I could never do that by myself.”

“You’re a nut,” Meghan says, hugging Kacey close to her side. “She’s not lonely, Kace. And if she is we’ll fix it. Simple as that.”

Kacey doesn’t miss the use of ‘we’. She doesn’t mention it, just sinks into Meghan’s side and lets the giddiness pass, too, until all she feels is bone-deep tiredness, enough to make her consider leaving the dishes for tomorrow.

****

**ii.**

Kacey starts reading again. Google is always less helpful than she needs it to be, but it’s more helpful than nothing, and she refuses to ask her mother about it because she knows they’ll both end up crying. Everything she reads about a kid’s first birthday without a parent makes her more anxious. Rehashing the details of Jen’s death doesn’t seem like something that would be helpful. Inviting Jen’s parents is one thing, but talking about it directly with Sophie again seems precarious.

Eventually she accepts that’s because she doesn’t want to talk about it.

The night before Sophie’s birthday she sits on the edge of Sophie’s bed and stalls. Sophie’s room is yellow, but there are posters on every flat surface- dogs, cats, horses, a girl band that Kacey can never remember the name of but whose two albums she knows by heart. In the end, Sophie does it for her.

“I wish mommy could be there tomorrow,” she says, and Kacey reaches for her, smoothing her hair out of her face, a face that looks more and more like Jen and less and less like Kacey every day.

“I know, Soph, baby,” Kacey says, “I do too. But all your grandparents are gonna be there, plus me and Uncle Corey. And she’s always with us as long as we remember her, right? Just like we said before.”

Sophie thinks about it for a second, and then she nods, pulling her covers up to her chin.

“It’s not fair,” she squeaks out, and Kacey swallows hard past a lump in her throat that needs to wait until later.

“I know,” Kacey repeats, “I know it’s not. Is there anyone else you want to come?”

Sophie shakes her head. Kacey tickles her, under her chin and along her side, over the blanket, until she squirms.

“Mickey?” she asks, and Sophie shakes her head.

“He’s busy,” she says.

“Goofy, then,” Kacey tries, continuing the tickling until Sophie is giggling.

“No,” she says, “I don’t like him, he can’t have a party favor.”

“Wow,” Kacey laughs, “okay, good to know.”

“Can Aunt Meghan come?” Sophie asks.

“Does she have to wear Mickey ears?” Kacey replies, and Sophie dissolves back into giggles, hiding herself under the covers. When she comes back up, Kacey kisses her forehead.

“I’ll call her in the morning to see if she’s free,” Kacey promises. She already knows the answer, though. Meghan would drop anything for something like this. She’ll be there. If Kacey told her she needed Mickey ears, she’d be there with those, too.

-

Meghan shows up at six in the morning.

Kacey was already awake, but Sophie isn’t. When she says so, Meghan gives her a weird look.

“I’m _your_ friend,” she says, and Kacey isn’t sure what to say to that.

“I’m making cupcakes,” is what she ends up saying, and Meghan follows her into the kitchen to see. Kacey had only gotten as far as taking the butter and the box out, but she already knows what’s going to happen. Meghan picks up the box and reads the ingredients, and Kacey waits for it instead of getting out the eggs and the oil.

“You can’t give her this,” Meghan says, “on her birthday. Nope. We’re doing this from scratch. You have flour, right?”

“Of course I have flour,” Kacey replies indignantly. They move around each other in the kitchen getting the rest of the things they’ll need, because Meghan knows the kitchen just as well as Kacey does. It’s a little kitchen and there’s not really enough room for both of them--Kacey has to slide by behind Meghan’s back a few times, close enough for them to have to touch--but they make it work, and before she knows it Kacey is watching Meghan spoon batter into cupcake tins.

“You doing okay?” Meghan asks, and Kacey frowns.

“Yeah,” Kacey replies. Meghan looks up from the last tin with her mouth set in a thin line. Kacey’s seen that exact look hundreds of times in the last two years. She’s not sure exactly what it is. Some combination of concern and exasperation.

“You should probably talk about it with someone,” Meghan says, more gently than Kacey expected, “even if it’s not me.”

Something in Kacey snaps. She can feel it like it’s a ligament or a bone but she knows it’s not, it’s something worse, and she sets her jaw to try to keep from saying it but it comes out anyway.

“It’s just another day,” she says sharply, “she’s not getting any more dead.”

Meghan blinks at her. Kacey immediately feels like crying. On the off chance that somewhere, Jen can hear her, she wishes for the thousandth time in the last eleven months that she could just compress herself into a smaller and smaller speck until she completely disappeared from this plane of existence. If Sophie had overheard her, if she had been awake--Kacey hadn’t checked to make sure--

“Fuck,” she says, dropping her head into her hands, resting her elbows on the counter, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Meg.”

Meghan is next to her in seconds, curling a protective arm around her shoulders, and Kacey is no longer confident she can keep from crying. Sophie could wake up any second. She could be in the kitchen any second, seeing this.

“No,” Meghan says, “hey, no. _I’m_ sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you about it.”

“I just don’t want to do this without her,” Kacey says, “and I thought I’d wake up one morning and stop feeling like that but I haven’t. Every single day is as hard as the first day.”

She almost said she didn’t want to do this alone, but she’s not, and she knows it. It’s hard to ignore that with Meghan’s arm around her. She’s not alone, but in some ways she still feels like she is. She still wakes up alone. When Sophie goes to bed, on the nights Meghan isn’t around, the house is too quiet and too empty, even as small as it is. 

Meghan turns her, firmly but gently, so that she can administer a proper hug. Kacey clings for a few seconds, until Meghan lets go of her.

“Good morning, birthday girl,” Meghan says, looking over Kacey’s shoulder at where Sophie has to be. Kacey doesn’t turn right away. She remembers this. She remembers two years ago when Sophie had turned four and she had been making pancakes and Jen did almost exactly this. 

She’s short of breath when she turns around and bursts into giddy laughter at the crude paper crown on Sophie’s head.

-

The rest of the day feels like it happens to someone else. It’s too good to be one of her days, but Kacey clings to it, to Sophie beaming over her cupcake with a candle stuck in it, and Kacey’s parents and Jen’s parents all fussing over her, and Meghan making everyone laugh, but especially Sophie.

Before Sophie blows out her candle Meghan insists on taking a picture of the two of them, and Kacey realizes with a jolt that takes her out of the fantasy for a few seconds that it’s the first picture anyone’s taken of her since Jen has been gone. 

-

Her paychecks feel like they’re getting smaller.

She knows that they’re not. It’s a combination of shit that the house needs all of a sudden--new gutters, there’s termites in her bathroom cabinets and her front steps--and Sophie getting more expensive as she gets older, but it feels like her paychecks are getting smaller. She’s not in any danger of running thin yet, but she can see it happening. In a few months she’s going to have to start making decisions about what to do without. She doesn’t want that. That’s not the life she was supposed to have. It’s not the life Sophie was supposed to have. 

That’s how Kacey ends up clicking through job openings past midnight.

Harvard is hiring an assistant coach. They haven’t done that for longer than she can remember, but the thought of coaching next to someone who coached _her_ is terrifying, at best. She doesn’t feel in any way qualified to do that. Katey knows all her bad habits. Why would she want to hire someone to tell her defensemen to shoot when Kacey only ever did it twenty percent of the time? She skips applying for that one. She bookmarks two other high schools. Private schools, with better pay, better benefits. 

Kacey widens her search and finds that Mercyhurst is hiring.

She applies without warning her boss or bookmarking or anything else. It’s a smaller program, more likely to take a high school coach, especially one with her credentials. She doesn’t know anyone there, doesn’t know anyone off the top of her head that’s played there, and the pay is comfortably better than what she earns now. That’s enough to get her to do it without considering anything else, and she forces herself to avoid considering anything else for long enough that she can put herself to bed, where she can forget about it.

-

When Meghan shows up Tuesday morning, she does with a coffee for them both. Sophie is still getting dressed. It’s become a very elaborate process for her, one that Kacey isn’t privy to. It’s supposedly a good thing, a normal thing, for Sophie to develop a desire for privacy, but Kacey was curious enough that she peeked in one day. It turned out that Sophie tries on a few different outfits before she decides which one she wants. 

“That’s kind of adorable,” Meghan says, when Kacey tells her about it.

“She usually comes out with matching shoes on,” Kacey says, “but not always. Yesterday she insisted that I let her go to school in two different sneakers.”

“Did you?” Meghan laughs, and Kacey shrugs.

She wanders further into the living room, and when she does she catches sight of Sophie’s family tree poster, waiting next to the couch to be turned in. Kacey sees the way that Meghan’s face changes when she notices her name on the tree. Her eyes go soft and she chews on her lips, which is a habit that Kacey knows means she’s holding something back. Meghan isn’t the type to hold her emotions back. That means it must be something big.

“Sophie wanted you on it,” Kacey says, coming to stand beside Meghan. Meghan is oddly quiet. She crouches down to get a better look at the posterboard.

“I always thought I’d have kids by now,” she murmurs. 

Kacey isn’t sure what to say. Meghan always had something going on--going back to school once she retired, her brief stint in coaching, starting her own business--she had never dated anyone for longer than a year. It hadn’t seemed terribly important to her as far as Kacey can remember, but she’s starting to wonder how much she actually knows about Meghan’s emotional life.

“You still could,” she offers. Meghan smiles, but it’s a sad sort of smile. Kacey realizes, finally, that it’s been a long time since she was sad for someone else.

****

**iii.**

“If you text your babysitter one more time,” Brianna says, “I’m going to confiscate your phone.”

“She’s fine,” Meghan says, patting Kacey’s hand, “I promise.”

Kacey wishes she had an excuse to go home. It’s been, almost definitely, _years_ since she was dragged out to a gay bar, and she hates it with every fiber of her being. They’re too old to be here, no matter what Decker says. There are definitely a cluster of women around their age, but Kacey would rather die than talk to any of them. She can’t remember why she agreed to do this in the first place until Meghan bumps her knee gently under the table of their booth in reassurance.

“Look,” Decker says, leaning over the table a little, “over in the corner over there, by the exit sign. She’s cute, right? She’s your type. I’m not saying you have to date her, just go talk to her. You’re going to forget how to talk to women and then one day when--”

“If,” Kacey breaks in, and Brianna rambles on, unfazed.

“If you’re interested you’ll have totally lost all your charm,” she finishes.

“I never had any charm,” Kacey says, “and besides, nobody is my ‘type’. There is no ‘type’.”

She sort of expects Meghan to laugh, but that’s not what happens. Instead Meghan takes a very careful sip of her beer, which Kacey hasn’t seen her drink in ages, and Kacey can’t help but feel like she’s said something wrong. Meghan looks like she wants to be here even less than Kacey does. She had ribbed Kacey into going out, but now it’s like the only person who wants to be there at all is Brianna, who’s _married_.

“I’m begging you,” Brianna says, “just talk to one woman tonight. Just one. To stay in practice.”

“It’s like riding a bike,” Kacey says, “I’m not going to forget.”

Kacey doesn’t think she’s ever going to want to talk to anyone the way she had talked to Jen, but she’ll do anything she can do to shut Brianna up. Flirting with Jen had required operation on all cylinders. She was smart, so she needed someone to keep up with her like that, but she was also gorgeous, and confident, and Kacey still can’t understand how they ended up together. It’s not going to happen again like that even if she wakes up and decides she wants it to, and she knows it.

“You guys are squares,” Brianna says. “I’m going to the bathroom and when I come back someone’s got to get up and dance with me.”

Kacey is considering disappearing while Brianna is gone when Meghan leans her elbow onto the table and fixes her with a look that says she’s about to get a pep talk.

“If you wanted to,” Meghan says, “you could, you know. Go on a date or two. Jen wouldn’t have wanted you to take an oath of chastity or anything.”

If it were anyone else Kacey knows she would have told them not to tell her what Jen would want. Meghan’s right, though, and she does know what Jen would have wanted. Jen would have wanted Kacey to dance. _Well_ , Kacey thinks, _you shouldn’t have died and left me without a dance partner, then._

“I don’t want to have to explain to someone after two dates that I’m a widowed single mom,” Kacey says. “Nobody wants that.”

That’s the real issue, and not something she’d ever say in front of Brianna, but she knows that Meghan will get it, or at least try to. She does sit and think about it for a few seconds. Kacey can’t read her expression in the changing club lights, but it strikes her that it might be possible Meghan doesn’t want her to.

“Okay,” Meghan says eventually, “then dance with me.”

Kacey chews her lips. Over Meghan’s shoulder she sees Brianna come out of the bathroom, and in a split second she has her hand out for Meghan to take her to the dance floor.

Meghan has always been good at this. Kacey is reminded of their first Olympics, then, the way that Meghan had taken her out onto the dance floor and made her forget their silver medals for a few minutes. It’s almost exactly like that. Meghan was brunette then, too, but her hair is a little shorter now, just at her shoulders, and her makeup is more tasteful. Kacey still doesn’t know how to dance, but it’s Meghan, so her self-consciousness melts away in seconds.

Meghan is exaggerating, throwing her hands up and back down, shimmying, trying to get Kacey to laugh, and it works. She can’t imagine what all the early-twenties girls think of them. It makes her laugh again. Before she knows it she’s dancing too, or doing something stupid that could be approximated as ‘dancing,’ and actually enjoying herself. They were right. She did need this.

When the music slows down her heart drops right out of her stomach.

She can’t tell for sure why that is. Meghan is still looking at her, but neither of them is moving. It’s the awkward hang time between when you’re deciding to stay on the dance floor or leave it, and Meghan looks so unsure all of a sudden that it makes Kacey brave for her. She has no idea what Meghan is afraid of, but if Meghan can get her on the dance floor, Kacey can keep Meghan on it.

She reaches out and pulls Meghan close to her. Meghan takes a second to adjust, but she’s smiling again as soon as she’s gotten ahold of whatever it is that was setting her back. Kacey is holding one of her hands, but Meghan’s other hand goes to Kacey’s shoulder. It’s funny, the two of them playing like any other couple on the floor, but it’s not funny enough to make Kacey laugh.

“This song is so old,” Meghan murmurs. Kacey doesn’t recognize it. She recognizes what she’s doing, though. Exactly like she told Brianna, being with a woman is like riding a bike, and everything about this is familiar. Her stomach churns because Meghan is so close to her. Her hands are clammy because Meghan is so close to her. It’s because Meghan’s a woman and Kacey hasn’t been close to anyone like this since at least six months before Jen died, when she ached too much to want anyone to touch her much at all, and Kacey was afraid to break her.

There’s nothing breakable about Meghan, who’s very much alive, pressing her thumbprint into Kacey’s collar.

“I applied for another job,” she blurts. Also familiar is the realization that she’s ruined an otherwise meaningful moment.

“Oh,” Meghan says. Her grip on Kacey slackens, and Kacey is surprised by how much she doesn’t like that. She wants Meghan to hold onto her more tightly. It’s not a thought she wants to dwell on.

“Better pay,” Kacey mumbles.

“Yeah,” Meghan says, “that would be nice.”

The moment is definitely over, though. Now it feels awkward that Meghan is so close to her, embarrassing, like Kacey has done something stupid. She doesn’t mention that it was Mercyhurst, or that taking it would involve a move, or anything else. The song ends and she lets go of Meghan’s hand.

-

Kacey takes Sophie to the park on Saturday.

Usually she would have invited Meghan, but it doesn’t feel like the right thing to do anymore, and she can’t put her finger on why. Sophie doesn’t mention it. She loves the park, but she’s not rambunctious like Gillian’s kids, or like Jen imagined she would be. They used to stay up all night when Jen was pregnant, imagining--things like this, days at the park, sunlight dappled over the two of them while they watched two or three (they could never decide) kids wrestle in the grass. 

But it’s not like that at all. Kacey wishes she could tell Jen that they were wrong. It’s just her and Sophie, her shock of blonde hair cut just below her ears, her nose stuck in a book like she’s sixteen instead of six.

“Do you wanna kick the ball around?” Kacey asks. Her head is propped up on the soccer ball right now. She had brought it with her just in case, but she sort of knows the answer.

“Mommy,” Sophie says, “did you know that hummingbirds can see and hear better than us?”

“No way,” Kacey says, “their brains are too small.”

“They can,” Sophie insists, “they can see way farther than you. I bet a hummingbird could see a bug all the way over there.”

She points, and Kacey closes her eyes.

“Yeah,” she says, “well, but I wear contacts, so I’m basically blind, that’s not really fair.”

“Bats are blind,” Sophie announces helpfully.

“I’m blind like a bat,” Kacey says in a sing-song voice. She’s not that blind, but having to get contacts the second she’d turned thirty had been a bummer. Jen had made fun of her. She’d worn contacts since she was a teenager. Kacey can’t help but wonder if every thought she has is going to be punctuated like that forever: Jen _thought_ , Jen _said_ , Jen _promised_.

“That’s okay,” Sophie says, wriggling until she can push herself up under Kacey’s arm, “I love you anyway.”

-

Jen’s parents pick Sophie up later that afternoon. They always linger, and it always makes Kacey uncomfortable, because Jen isn’t there to entertain them anymore. They always seem to Kacey like they aren’t sure whether they feel bad for themselves or for her, and she hates both of those ideas. She’s relieved for two minutes once they’re gone, and then the deafening silence of the house with nobody in it sets in.

It used to be that when Jen’s parents took Sophie for the night they’d--

Kacey calls Meghan without completing the thought. She needs to be here, now. 

“Hey,” Meghan says, when she answers on the second ring.

“Soph is with her grandparents,” Kacey says. She doesn’t specify. She’s afraid if she says Jen’s name she’ll keep cycling through the same thoughts.

“Awesome,” Meghan says, “come over in an hour? I’ll cook.”

“I’ll bring the wine,” Kacey says, and Meghan laughs.

“You know me too well,” Meghan teases her. “Bring something fruity.”

-

Kacey can remember a time when nights like this had two more people in them.

Before Jen had gotten sick it had been her and Jen and Meghan, and sometimes Gillian, or whoever Meghan was dating back when she did that. Now it’s just the two of them. Kacey remembers an article that Gillian sent her once about amputees being able to feel the limb after it was amputated. There’s something to that, something about how she feels as if Jen is just in Meghan’s kitchen getting another glass for the wine, ready to pop back in any second and pull Kacey’s arm around her shoulders.

Of course that never happens. She wonders if some part of her will always be expecting that moment.

“You think too much,” Meghan says, when she joins Kacey on the couch.

“You talk too much,” Kacey replies, and Meghan laughs, a full-bodied laugh that makes Kacey smile.

With each glass of wine--there are two--Kacey stops thinking about what nights like this used to be like and starts thinking more about now. Right now, she’s warm and comfortable on Meghan’s couch. Right now, Meghan is treating her to some shrimp and pasta dish that blows Kacey’s mind three times over. Right now they’re laughing about some stupid postgame ritual they used to have involving dares and junk food that Meghan could only ever have two bites of before it made her sick.

Right now Kacey swears that Meghan is turning a little pink.

“We should do this more,” Meghan says, stretching her legs out on the couch until her bare feet touch Kacey’s thigh. Kacey gets a little distracted by Meghan’s bright pink toenails. When she looks up, Meghan is looking at her over her glass of wine, and she’s definitely pink. Kacey hesitates in a way that she never has before. They _should_ do this more often. The way Meghan said it, though, reminds Kacey of a first date, the tightrope walk between expressing interest and coming off too eager.

Just when Kacey starts to convince herself she was making that up, Meghan’s eyes dip to her mouth for a fraction of a second. Kacey’s heart thumps against her breastbone with the confirmation of the theory she had barely let herself have at all. Meghan wants to kiss her. When Meghan drops her feet, Kacey slides across the couch, but she feels and sees it happening like it’s happening to someone else. This close, Kacey can feel the heat of Meghan’s body inches away, and she’s reminded suddenly and vividly of the club, of Meghan’s thumb pressed to her collar.

Meghan is here. Kacey gets caught up in the vividness of the moment, like she’s just put her glasses on and suddenly she can see every single detail, to the point that it almost overwhelms her. She can see every single freckle on Meghan’s chest above the v-neck collar of her shirt, the crow’s feet around her eyes, the sheen of chapstick on her lips. Meghan is looking at her mouth, and she’s looking at Meghan’s, and it suddenly seems absurd that they haven’t done anything about it. 

So Kacey kisses her.

Pressing her lips to Meghan’s gives her a rush like she hasn’t felt for so long that she can’t remember the last time she felt it. That rush of adrenaline passes the moment that Meghan’s hand comes up to her cheek, replaced by a wave of guilt so strong that Kacey jerks away from the kiss in dizzy confusion. The guilt is as vivid as if Jen is waiting on her at home, but she’s not, and Kacey can’t make out top from bottom or right from wrong. For now all she can make out is the surprise and the hurt in Meghan’s eyes, and the continuous realization that she put it there.

“Kacey,” Meghan says, “hey…”

“No,” Kacey says, because she can’t hear whatever it is Meghan’s going to say. She feels like she’s going to jump out of her skin, like she has no control over anything, especially herself.

“Okay,” Meghan says, like they’ve had an entire conversation. Kacey hates that, hates that Meghan is in her head _and_ on her mind and on this couch with her, hates herself and the world for doing this to her.

“I don’t know why I did that,” Kacey mumbles. Everything she does or says makes the pain on Meghan’s face sharper. Kacey focuses on the individual threads in her own jeans.

“We don’t have to talk about it,” Meghan says, “right now, just...I know it’s, you’re dealing with a lot. I mean, next week is a year, right?”

It hits Kacey like a punch square in the stomach. Next week is a year. Next week it will have been a year since Jen died and she’s sitting on Meghan’s couch trying to understand why she felt like a kiss was the end of the world, a cataclysmic event in the course of their friendship and her life and her relationship with Jen, who will never even know that it happened.

She keeps feeling the kiss over and over on a loop. It makes her want to grab Meghan by the shoulders and try it again. There’s some version of reality where Kacey can see herself pressing Meghan into the couch cushions and kissing her until neither of them can breathe. Here, in this reality, she fumbles for her keys on the coffee table.

“Hey,” Meghan says, “call me, okay? Or just text me when you get home, I want to know when you’ve gotten home.”

Kacey makes it home before she hyperventilates. She doesn’t make it far, just inside, and it’s a stupid little thing that sets her off. Her hands are shaking too hard for her to put her keys down, so they fall off the counter, and then Kacey is doubled over unsure whether she’s about to start sobbing or throw up or pass out.

She still manages to text Meghan that she made it home. 

-

Meghan never texts her back. 

Kacey realizes that she’s been able to feel for the past few days only once she can’t anymore. She’s shut herself down again, in response to what happened or what’s coming or both, and for the first time in years she _itches_ to get back on the ice. She dreams of it that night, dreams of skating until her lungs gave out, and when she wakes up her cheeks are wet.

-

They’ve gone days without texting or speaking before. Kacey is almost sure that they have. She spends her day focusing on Sophie, wondering if she knows that it’s been a year tomorrow, trying to decide if she should bring it up. All the literature tells her that she should, but she wants to wait until tomorrow, as if that will give her more time to be ready when she knows she never could be. It feels like the sort of thing she should lean on Meghan for, but she can’t make herself do it. She can only put herself on autopilot and swim in guilt.

-

 

-

It’s snowing. Kacey studies a path of tiny footprints, some clean, some sloppy. There’s a body next to hers on the front steps, pressed close, somebody she likes and cares a lot about, whose nails are painted a deep purple. There’s a little girl toddling toward the front gate. She stumbles and falls, then rolls over onto her back and throws snow in the air above her with delighted squeals.

“I never want to forget this,” says Kacey’s wife, and then she wakes up, kicking away her blankets and propelling herself into the bathroom, where she can turn the shower on and step into water icy enough to make her heart race for better reasons.

-

It’s a beautiful day, which feels like a betrayal. Meghan meets them at the cemetery with white lilies, her sleek hair pulled back into a bun, a style that’s been new over the past year or so. It makes Meghan look properly her age. The rest of the time she still looks barely thirty to Kacey, and she’s sure that most other people would agree with her. She crouches down to hug Sophie properly, but she doesn’t hand Kacey the flowers, or move to hug her. All she does is press her lips into a thin line and nod when she stands up, like they’re strangers.

Kacey figures that she deserves it. Sophie has said less than twenty words all morning and Kacey is primarily concerned with that, but the literature all tells her not to push it, so she doesn’t. She holds Sophie’s hand on the walk to Jen’s grave, winding between other headstones with Meghan trailing them. She has the distinct feeling that Meghan is there for Sophie and not for her.

A bird lands a little ways away in the grass, picking at the ground, and Kacey stares at it for a few seconds before she makes herself really look. She hasn’t come back much, since they buried Jen. She can’t remember much about that day, other than the fact that she’s sure Meghan put an arm around her when they lowered the casket, and she’s sure the way she feels about it now isn’t normal.

Meghan hands Sophie the flowers, crouching again to say something quietly to her, and Sophie goes to put the flowers by the stone. Kacey knows that she should feel something, but she doesn’t really feel as if she’s there. She can see everything in so much detail that it bores her. The shadow of Jen’s name carved into the stone, the way one of the lilies’ petals is bent down, it all feels too real to actually be real.

Sophie stays at the headstone for a while. She’s talking to it, to Jen, and Kacey bites her lips and tries to decide whether she should be there, too. She decides not to interrupt, and eventually Sophie wipes her nose on her sleeve, stands up, and comes to Kacey. Kacey crouches down to hug Sophie properly, so that Sophie can get her arms around her neck, and closes her eyes.

In the parking lot, Meghan hesitates. Kacey knows it must mean she has something to say that she doesn’t want to say in front of Sophie, so she buckles Sophie in, turns the car on, and closes the door. 

“Any plans for the rest of the day?” Meghan asks. She won’t look at Kacey, though. She’s looking out past her, back at the cemetery. 

“I was going to take her to the zoo,” Kacey says, “the smaller one, in the city, since it’s close and she likes the penguins. And then take her home and let her watch whatever she wants. I promised her we’d order pizza. Real pizza.”

Her joke doesn’t land. Meghan nods, and now her eyes are on the ground.

“You probably shouldn’t be alone tonight,” Meghan says.

Kacey feels a flash of frustration. She knows she shouldn’t be left alone. She knows that she’ll have a breakdown once Sophie is in bed, asleep. She _knows_ all of that, and she doesn’t need Meghan to tell her. It’s not as if she has options. Her friends all have families they need to be with, responsibilities that she would feel too bad distracting them from, and she’s already ruined whatever support Meghan was willing to offer her. Before she can open her mouth, Meghan continues, her eyes fixed firmly on Kacey’s front left tire.

“I can come stay,” she says, “but only if you want. Only if you think it’ll help.”

It’s a temporary arrangement. That’s what it sounds like to her, like Meghan is willing to be her band-aid for the night, and as annoyed as Kacey is she doesn’t have the strength to turn it down or to try to rationalize a way for her to be the victim. Meghan is being beyond gracious, showing her kindness that Kacey knows she doesn’t deserve at least not right now.

“If you want,” Kacey says. She can tell that Meghan is hurt, and she hates herself for it. She needs to show a little humility, even if she can’t get everything (or anything) right.

“Sorry,” she says, “I’m just--”

“I know,” Meghan says, “that’s why I’m coming. Do you want me to bring anything?”

Kacey shakes her head.

“I’ll bring chocolate,” Meghan says, and for a few seconds Kacey thinks that everything might be okay.

-

The rest of the day is better. Kacey doesn’t fall into the trap of pretending that Jen is there, waiting around every corner. It hurts more to remind herself that’s not her reality, but she knows that it’s healthier. It hurts the way that doing hill sprints used to hurt, in a way that makes her feel like she’s going somewhere, doing something good with herself. Thinking about kissing Meghan, though, is a different kind of hurt, like an aching tooth she can’t stop running her tongue over. She doesn’t want to think about it. She doesn’t like how she feels. But she can’t _stop_ thinking about it.

There are chapters in all the self help books about moving on that she’s never touched. She knows what they’ll say, without having to read them. Kacey is smart enough to know that anyone reasonable will tell her that it’s okay to move on, that if her feelings about Meghan are reciprocated--and she knows Meghan well enough to know that they are--then she should do something about it. None of those things take into account how _she_ feels about moving on. It’s all about how Jen would feel, but thinking about being with anyone else still makes Kacey’s stomach turn. It’s been a year. A year just isn’t long enough. When she tries to decide how long would be enough, numbers like three or four come into her head, but in three or four years she’ll be almost forty, and there’s no way to know whether Meghan would wait that long, or whether anyone else would bother to find her attractive again after the fact.

“Mommy,” Sophie says, peering up to the sky, holding a hand over her brow, “I want a giraffe.”

It’s hot. Kacey looks up to the giraffe’s head, too, and lets herself feel pleasantly dizzy for a few seconds.

“Okay,” she says, “where’s he gonna sleep? What are you gonna name him? What do we feed him?”

Sophie thinks about it for a few seconds. 

“Nevermind,” she says eventually, “I just want to look.”

-

Meghan shows up twenty minutes after Sophie has gone to bed, just after Kacey gets out of the shower. Being alone with her is awkward immediately, the moment that Kacey lets her inside. She did bring chocolate, and it feels like a romantic gesture, not half because Meghan is a little bit pink and won’t meet her gaze.

“I agreed to get a pet giraffe today,” Kacey says, because talking about Sophie is always a safe bet, “what did you do today?”

“Worried about you,” Meghan says honestly, and Kacey swallows. She’s not going to get out of it. Meghan is going to insist on taking care of her whether she wants to acknowledge her fraying seams or not.

Kacey takes the chocolate and sets it aside on the counter. Meghan hugs her, and Kacey sinks into it, resting her chin on Meghan’s shoulder and closing her eyes. She can remember very vividly another time Meghan hugged her like this in her foyer. That time Meghan had brought pizza that had tasted like greasy cardboard to Kacey, and stayed up all night sifting through Jen’s medical bills while Kacey stared at a TV playing through endless episodes of Family Feud.

“I’m exhausted,” Kacey says. It feels good to tell the truth. It feels good to tell the truth to _Meghan_.

“Let’s put something stupid on,” Meghan says.

The TV in the living room is too loud, so, like they always would, they go to Kacey’s room and prop her laptop up on the dresser. Kacey tries not to think about it too hard. Meghan waits for her to get into bed, and first they stay as far from each other as possible. Eventually it feels stupid enough that Kacey starts to scoot closer, and Meghan does the same. 

It’s useless not to be touching Meghan. Kacey wants to be, and she knows, somehow, that the feeling is mutual. Meghan’s put some movie on they’ve both seen a thousand times that Kacey can’t even remember the name of, and she knows she’s going to fall asleep any moment. She nudges herself closer until the space between them is negligible, and then Meghan finally makes a move. She reaches to put an arm around Kacey’s shoulders, and Kacey rolls into her arms, resting her cheek on Meghan’s chest and closing her eyes.

Meghan takes a deep breath, and Kacey can feel her chest rise and fall. She can hear Meghan’s heartbeat, but she can’t really see the laptop. It doesn’t matter. She’s seen the movie a thousand times and she knows every word. 

“You shut your mouth when you’re talking to me,” Meghan says along with it, and then she laughs, and Kacey has to smile, her arms pulled close to her chest. It seems okay to do that, to lay on Meghan as long as she keeps her hands to herself. She can’t remember the last time she was close to someone like this. Not someone. Jen. She can’t remember the specific last time that she lay on Jen like this.

What scares her the most is that it doesn’t feel like cheating.

A few minutes later Meghan shifts, and Kacey does too, putting some space between them again.

“Sorry,” Meghan says, “my arm fell asleep.”

Kacey is still lying on her side, trying or pretending to try to see the laptop. Meghan is lying on her back at first, but eventually she rolls to face Kacey, and all pretenses of having a movie on are gone. 

Their faces are too close. Kacey hadn’t really decided on the first kiss. This time she wants it to be intentional. She’s already decided that she’s going to do it, but she wants it to happen exactly when and how it is in her head, so she waits. Part of it is just recklessness, daring Meghan to turn away from her, to back down from her and the wreck that she knows she is. She’s sure her eyes are red and swollen still from the cry she had in the shower. She knows that there’s a picture of her and Jen up on her night table, and that if Meghan looked over her shoulder she’d see it. She knows that Meghan wants to kiss her, and none of those pieces feel like they fit.

When Kacey leans in for the kiss, they do. Meghan doesn’t kiss her back right away, but Kacey makes her point before she gives Meghan a little bit of space to decide whether she’s going to bail or stay. For a moment, when Meghan opens her eyes again, Kacey thinks she really _will_ bail, but then the warmth is back in Meghan’s eyes and Kacey is flooded with relief. Meghan wouldn’t leave her. It’s entirely why Kacey wants to kiss her in the first place.

Meghan takes Kacey’s face in her hands and kisses Kacey like it’s all she’s wanted to do for days, and Kacey knows that it’s true. Kacey kisses her back and forgets about everything. She forgets about Jen, she forgets about Sophie in the next room, about the movie and the Mercyhurst job and everything else. For long, long minutes there’s nothing but Meghan, nothing but their lips moving together and Meghan’s hands falling to Kacey’s waist to pull her closer. Kacey’s hands go to Meghan’s stomach and her elbows and her upper arms before she gives in and threads one hand into Meghan’s soft, full hair and opens her mouth into the kiss.

She’s not sure how long they do that for. The movie isn’t over when they finally pull apart, but it’s well along, and Meghan’s lips are swollen from where Kacey was tugging them into her mouth. She stares, trying to process that she _did_ that, and Meghan swallows.

“Do you want me to leave?” Meghan asks, with a quiver in her voice that tells Kacey she thinks the answer is going to be ‘yes’.

“No,” Kacey says, maybe a little bit too quickly. “I want you to stay.”

They watch the end of the movie with an inch or two between them. Meghan doesn’t make a move to touch her again, but something is different, and Kacey’s sure that they can both tell. She wonders, for a weird, dizzying second, whether or not Sophie will be able to tell, too.

“Remember that time we won Worlds and you guys made me eat a Big Mac?” Meghan asks, continuing their stupid conversation from earlier, when the credits roll. Kacey gets out of bed to close her laptop, and the space between them gives her room to breathe and crack a smile.

“Yeah,” she says, “and you barfed it back up like forty five minutes later. Why?”

“I’ve been craving one for days,” Meghan says, rolling over to press her face into a pillow. Kacey gets distracted by the way Meghan’s t shirt clings to her shoulders. She’s not bulked like she used to be for hockey, but her shoulders are still strong and big enough that her smaller shirts show them off more than a little bit. With her arms over her head, there’s a strip of skin visible just above her shorts, and Kacey stares shamelessly at the freckled dip of Meghan’s lower back for a few seconds before she remembers she’s supposed to be having a conversation.

“Go get one,” Kacey says, “I’ll stay with Sophie for a bit. You should totally do it. You can do that shit now. Get me one too.”

Meghan turns her head so that she can see Kacey. Her hair is a mess, and Kacey wants to crawl onto the bed and straddle her with such vivid urgency that she has to lean back against the dresser.

“Seriously?” Meghan asks, “you want one?”

“Only always,” Kacey says.

“Alright,” Meghan laughs, and sits up, pulling her shirt down, “but don’t fall asleep on me.”

-

Kacey falls asleep.

The mistake was getting under the covers. She had turned the fan on and was too cold to wait, and the moment the covers were pulled up she dozed off. _Meghan has a key_ , she reminded herself, only somehow it sounded a bit like Jen’s voice, and then she was asleep.

She wakes up to Meghan’s voice.

“Get up,” Meghan says, tossing a paper bag onto Kacey’s chest, “I’m not eating this shit alone.”

The smell of grease and salt wakes Kacey better than any alarm ever has. It’s almost midnight. She sits up and Meghan joins her on the bed, reaching into the bag for her burger.

“Will you be pissed if I puke this one up too?” Meghan asks, and Kacey almost chokes on her own burger.

“Just don’t puke on my nice carpet,” Kacey says, “please. If Sophie can make it to a trash can, sink, or toilet, you can too.”

Meghan bites into her burger and makes an obscene sound that Kacey is embarrassed to realize stirs parts of her she hasn’t thought about for over a year. She seems to realize what she’s done after the fact, because she goes a little pink, but Kacey doesn’t acknowledge it. She just eats her burger. 

They brush their teeth together afterward, and that’s when the guilt catches up to Kacey. She has to reach under the sink for a spare toothbrush, and she can remember Jen buying them. It was the sort of thing only Jen ever thought of. Somehow, in her head, kissing Meghan is worse than kissing a stranger. Kissing someone that Jen knew, someone that Jen loved. It feels like another level of betrayal.

Except that Jen is dead and Meghan is not. Meghan’s arm brushes against Kacey’s in the bathroom and there’s no question about that, the _realness_ of her, down to the tiny little hairs on her forearm. They’re alive here, together, and Kacey wants more than anything else to fall asleep in someone’s arms again. 

Meghan hesitates until Kacey gets into bed, and Kacey holds eye contact until Meghan follows her, slipping under the covers. She’s warm, and Kacey can’t resist moving over to her, pressing her back against Meghan’s chest. Meghan slings an arm low around Kacey’s torso and tucks her chin against Kacey’s shoulder. Somehow it’s no surprise that they fit together so well.

Kacey shifts back against her, pressing her hips back. She wants to believe she means nothing by it, but she knows better. Meghan is warm and solid and wants her, and Kacey can’t stop thinking about Meghan’s shoulders. Finally, after a few seconds, Meghan responds, turning her head to kiss the back and side of Kacey’s neck, sliding her hand under Kacey’s shirt in one smooth motion that knocks the air out of her lungs.

Meghan just strokes her hand along Kacey’s stomach and kisses her neck. Every time Kacey thinks something else will come, nothing does. Eventually Meghan stops even doing that, and after a while Kacey can tell that Meghan has fallen asleep, her hand still resting against Kacey’s bare stomach, her breath tickling Kacey’s cheek.

-

When Kacey wakes up, Meghan is already in the bathroom. Her spot on the bed is warm when Kacey rolls over, and it makes her flush to remember the night before. Somehow, with daylight coming through the blinds, it seems much more scandalous. She shouldn’t have done it. She wants to do it again. She’s starting to panic.

The panic mounts while she lays very still with her face pressed into Meghan’s pillow. When Meghan opens the door to the bathroom, Kacey springs out of bed so quickly that her knees click and complain.

“Morning,” Meghan laughs. She looks happy, but she doesn’t look sure about it. When Kacey really understands that the happiness is coming from her, from Meghan waking up next to her, the panic overflows.

“I got an offer from Mercyhurst,” she says. She has. She hasn’t read it. She had only opened the email, registered what it was, and gone to the cemetery. 

“Oh,” Meghan says. The worst part of it is that the happiness doesn’t leave her face right away. Some parts of it are still there, as if she thinks it’s something she can hold onto. Kacey aches to keep the smile on Meghan’s face. She wishes she had woken up first and been able to watch while Meghan did, slowly, blinking at her in the hazy-half light of the bedroom. The guilt hits her again. The bed that Jen had picked out. The blinds that Jen had ordered. Only now the guilt is twofold, and there’s a part of it that belongs to Meghan, too, to the happiness she brought Meghan and the absence of it after she took it away.

“I think I might take it,” Kacey blurts. No sense in leaving the band-aid half on.

She’s standing close enough to see it when Meghan puts a mask up. She does it deftly, practiced in years of media scrums, and Kacey regrets opening her mouth immediately. The mask isn’t Meghan’s media scrum mask unless it’s the one she used after games that they lost when they should have won. The anger puts tension in her jaw that Kacey hasn’t seen in months. 

“Tell Sophie I said hi,” Meghan says, in a measured, even tone. She leaves without saying anything else. By the time Kacey can make her feet move again, Meghan is gone. 

-

The only person that Kacey can think to call, once the dust has settled and she’s gotten Sophie to eat something for breakfast despite her sudden aversion to food before noon, is Gillian. The second she picks up the phone, Kacey can hear the twins in the background. Gillian shuffles and the sound gets quieter.

“Hey,” Gillian says, “what’s up?”

“Are you busy?” Kacey asks, “I did something stupid.”

“I love stupid,” Gillian says. “No, I’m not busy, unless you count twin-wrangling because I’m home alone at the moment. Why don’t you bring Sophie around? They could use a civilizing influence.”

Gillian’s twin boys are nine tenths mischief and one tenth everything else. They’re adorable, and identical, but they look like their other mom. Gillian likes to joke about them being grateful, later, that they got her wife’s complexion instead of hers. They love Sophie, and Sophie, as shy as she is, turns into someone different around them. Kacey thinks it’s probably because she’s known them forever. It gives her an opportunity to be the oldest.

“Say hi to Kacey,” Gillian commands. One twin is upside down on a child-sized beanbag chair. He waves and topples over. The other one--Kacey thinks that one is Dylan, but she’s never sure-makes a raspberry in her direction that she figures must count as a greeting.

“Go outside,” Gillian says, opening the sliding door in the kitchen and shooing them, “go on, go. Do not climb up the slide again or I’m taking it apart. Got it? Okay, go.”

With the three of them outside, Gillian leans against the door comically, and blows her hair out of her face. Their house is always sort of charmingly a mess. It looks like a house with a family living in it. Kacey’s not sure what hers looks like anymore.

“You want a drink?” Gillian asks, wandering over to the fridge. She peers inside, and Kacey watches the kids playing in the backyard. Sophie is directing them, her face more animated than Kacey has seen it in weeks. Her hair is so bright in the sun that it almost hurts. 

“I have...apple juice, milk, water, and...a single La Croix,” Gillian says, wincing.

“I’m alright,” Kacey says, leaning against the counter. Gillian settles into a stool at the counter and watches the yard for a few seconds before she speaks again.

“So,” Gillian says, “you did something stupid.”

Kacey clears her throat. She’s trying to guess Gillian’s reaction, but she can’t. There seems to be a fifty-fifty chance that Gillian laughs or is dead serious. 

“Meghan and I,” Kacey starts, but then she’s not sure how to say it. They didn’t sleep together, but they did _sleep_ together. Saying they kissed feels juvenile. It also doesn’t feel like enough.

“Ah,” Gillian says. “I was wondering.”

Kacey feels a flash of annoyance that reminds her of when they were younger and it was Gillian that Meghan was with. For a few months, Gillian had seemed insufferably sure of herself, but Kacey knows better. And it probably _would_ have been obvious to Gillian that Meghan was feeling something. 

“You could have told me,” Kacey says.

“I could have,” Gillian agrees, “but it wasn’t for me to say, and I like my kids having two parents.”

Kacey wants to ask her how long, but she’s not sure she wants the answer, and she’s more sure that if she wants it, she wants it from Meghan. Meghan, who probably won’t speak to her again unless she gets down on her knees and begs for it, which she’s considering.

“So that’s it?” Gillian says, “you and Meghan…” she trails off, and Kacey sighs.

“No,” Kacey says, “she stayed with me last night, and--we didn’t--I mean, I don’t want to say nothing happened, but--when I woke up I told her I was thinking about taking this job offer I got. At Mercyhurst.”

Gillian doesn’t laugh. She licks her lips and goes to the fridge to get the La Croix. It’s barely eleven but she doesn’t seem to notice.

“I’m assuming you didn’t ask her to move with you,” Gillian says. Kacey gapes at her.

“Why would I?” she asks, “it’s not like I’m dating her. Do you even think she would go?”

“No,” Gillian says, “but if something happened with the two of you, and then you woke up and told her you were leaving, doesn’t that sound a bit like dumping her before you even give her a chance?”

Kacey shrugs. She knows that Gillian is right, but she’s in the sort of mood where that bothers her. It’s not as if they had talked about it, whatever they were doing. Kacey was never going to assume that Meghan, of all people, would want to buckle herself in for the kind of life she’d been seeing Kacey live. Except, at the same time, Kacey can’t imagine that anyone _but_ Meghan would ever want to. Meghan was patient with her when she didn’t deserve it. She’s already been living that life, with nothing much to show for it.

“So,” Kacey says, “as someone who’s dated her...how do I fix it?”

Gillian takes another drink. Outside, Sophie stands at the bottom of the slide, jumping out of the way when the boys come down it. 

“Not by moving to Pennsylvania,” Gillian says. “Why don’t you come back later and leave Soph here with us for the night? We have the space and she’ll enjoy it. And then you can go to Meghan’s. And just be honest with her. She’s going to act like she hates it for the first couple of minutes, but the truth is all she wants. That’s all she ever wants.”

Kacey presses her lips together.

“It’s not about her,” she says. “Leaving. Of course I’d want to stay and try something with her. But this job pays better, and Sophie could use a change, I’d be able to afford better school by the time she hit middle school. Keeping her here, you know--with things how they are, with this job I have now, it’s not fair to her.”

“And taking her away from Meghan is?” Gillian asks.

It feels like Gillian has just socked her in the stomach. She’s trying to remember the last time Gillian really hit her on the ice and she can’t, but she imagines that it probably felt like this. Kacey flashes back immediately to the cemetery, to Sophie hugging Meghan hello, and her resolve is gone in an instant. It must be clear all over her face. This was never about Sophie. It was always about her.

Gillian touches her arm. Sophie climbs up to the top of the slide.

“Just talk to her,” Gillian says. 

-

Kacey doesn’t call first. It’s a Sunday night and she knows Meghan will be home. She wonders if she should bring something, but she’s too nervous to decide, so she just sort of shows up on Meghan’s doorstep. The moment she rings the doorbell she regrets it. She hasn’t prepared. She doesn’t know what to say. The night is balmy and her shirt is already sticking to her a little bit, whether from humidity or her own nervousness she’s not sure. She wipes her hands on her jeans and waits.

Meghan eventually comes to the door. She’s already dressed down for the night, in loose sweatpants and a tank top. Her hair is wet. She looks surprised for a moment, and then she crosses her arms. She’s apparently not even going to offer to have Kacey come inside, which stings, but Kacey knows she deserves it.

“Hey,” Kacey says. Her voice cracks like she’s a fifteen year old boy.

“It’s late,” Meghan says, “don’t you work tomorrow?”

“This is important,” Kacey replies, and Meghan does a good job of showing no emotion at all.

“I’m sorry,” Kacey continues. It seems right to start with an apology, though she’s not sure what it’s for, specifically. There’s almost too much to apologize for. She wonders if Meghan cried over her, and the thought makes her chest hurt.

“Apology accepted,” Meghan murmurs.

“No,” Kacey says, “just--I’m sorry for letting you carry me for a year without giving you anything back. I was wrong to do that. I was taking advantage of you because I was too scared to do anything other than let someone take care of me and my life. And I’m sorry.”

Meghan swallows so hard that it’s obvious. She takes a few seconds, and then she shifts her weight to her other hip. Kacey is starting to worry that talking won’t be enough, despite what Gillian told her. She should have brought flowers. 

“Are you done?” Meghan asks.

“No,” Kacey replies, even though she’s not sure what to say next. Meghan considers that for a few seconds before she steps back, sweeping her hair behind her ear. It’s a shy gesture, a hurt gesture, and Kacey suddenly wants nothing more than to hold her.

“C’mon,” Meghan says, and Kacey follows her inside.

They don’t leave the foyer, but at least inside Kacey feels like she has a chance. She clears her throat and tries again.

“You were the one that was there when nobody else was,” Kacey says. “You did everything for me. And I fell for you,” she says, realizing it as she says it, “I did. All of that was real. It didn’t go anywhere, but I didn’t treat you like I cared about you, and I’m sorry for that, too.”

Meghan sniffs. She runs both hands through her hair, and Kacey can see that they’re shaking.

“You’re still leaving,” Meghan says, “so I don’t see why it matters, all this stuff you’re saying.”

“I’m not,” Kacey says, “not officially, I never--I haven’t answered them about the job, I just--it’s so much more money. And the school sucks, Meghan, honestly, it does.”

“So,” Meghan says, “those were your only two options? Staying where you are now or moving away?”

Kacey shakes her head. She was never going to get away without the whole truth, GIllian made that clear, but she hadn’t realized how many layers she had left to tell. The Harvard job had been right there. She could have walked into it.

“No,” she says, “my options were to stay and wait until you left me, or to leave first.”

Meghan understands it almost immediately. Kacey can see it when the realization crosses Meghan’s face, softening her eyes and the hard lines around her mouth. Admitting it makes Kacey feel like Meghan can see right into and through her, and she’s almost on the verge of tears, shaking, waiting for Meghan to ask her to leave. At the same time, it’s liberating not to have anything left to carry around, and not to have Meghan carrying it, either.

Instead, Meghan reaches for her. First for her wrist, and then for her face. She pulls Kacey in and never blinks. Kacey’s expecting a kiss, but for a few seconds, a few _long_ seconds, Meghan just looks at her. When she finally moves, it’s to pull Kacey into her arms, and Kacey melts against her. 

There are a lot of things Kacey still needs to say, a lot she still needs to apologize for, and a lot she still needs to thank Meghan for, but now that Meghan has touched her, talking feels irrelevant. Instead she pulls back to kiss Meghan, and for the first time there’s no guilt, no panic, nothing but relief. Meghan won’t leave her. The truth, the one that Kacey has known for months, is that Meghan leaving was never the thing she was afraid of.

She puts her apologies into the kiss. Meghan has to know that this is what she was afraid of all along, this moment, because she strokes her thumb along Kacey’s jaw so tenderly that Kacey wants to cry. 

“Stay,” Meghan murmurs, when they part to breathe. Kacey nods wordlessly, and Meghan kisses her again, her hands sliding down across Kacey’s neck to her shoulders. There’s a flutter of fear behind her breastbone, but this time Kacey quiets it and presses her forehead to Meghan’s.

With every breath she takes the two worlds get closer together, the world where she loved Jen and the world where she’s falling for Meghan. She’s been living in both of them. So has Sophie.

“Fuck,” Kacey mumbles. Meghan drops her hands to Kacey’s hips.

“Hmm?” she responds, but she sounds distracted, and Kacey doesn’t blame her.

“Gillian has Sophie,” Kacey says, “I gotta go get her. I want to stay, I--”

“Hey,” Meghan laughs, cutting Kacey off with another kiss, “I’m coming with you.”


End file.
